What Do You Mean We Need a New Floor?

Day two began with George and his concrete guy looking more carefully at our slab. There was a fairly lively discussion in Spanish that didn't make George seem too happy. The original plan was to use a liquid leveler and to leave the existing slab as is, but that wasn't going to work here. The existing slab was too weak to support the tile for the bathroom, it was barely two inches thick. They need to remove the entire floor and pour a new one.

Now we immediately assume there is going to be a huge cost to this just considering the amount of additional labor. They need to break up the entire floor and dig down about 6 inches (or more) so they can pour a new four inch thick floor. In the end the additional cost was reasonable and included new stairs. We had been planning on just putting on new treads and risers. The best part though is the digging down a half foot. My clearance was always a bit tight at 6'8" (actually its the minimum for code) and getting two more inches will feel like a lot.

As you can see the floor was very thin and there were already a few patched cracks that showed a little movement. The floor came up pretty easily. They got most of it done with the small jack hammer before the full size one arrived.